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History of 'Grandview' speaks today

Chambersburg Public Opinion
Published 1:49 p.m. ET April 5, 2016

The intersection of the Glen and King streets, looking south toward the fountain. The fountain still stands today, though without the circular structure that was around it.(Photo: Franklin County Historical Society)

When you drive through the Grandview section of Chambersburg, you get a different feeling from what you experience in other parts of the community. Rather than hurrying you feel an urge to slow down.

With its wide streets, greenery, large old houses and quaint fountain, it looks like an uncluttered, cultivated and historic oasis. And that’s because it was and is.

How it came to be is a wonderful, but ultimately sad, local story recounted again recently by the Franklin County Historical Society on its Facebook page.

We share the story here (and encourage you to read more) both as tribute to one man’s (dare we say) “grand” vision, and as a timely reminder of how fear and hatred can overwhelm reason and drive people to act in ways clearly shameful in the light of history.

Diederick "Dick" Allday, a celebrated and wealthy local developer, was responsible for developing Grandview, Chambersburg's first planned neighborhood, in 1909. According to the historical society, Allday had acquired the land after marrying Alcesta Bishop, whose father Rev. Bishop owned the then-farmland with an expansive view of Blue Mountain.

Looking west from Lincoln Way West toward Glen Street, which is on the right.(Photo: Franklin County Historical Society)

The neighborhood including Glen, King and Garber streets and Bishop Avenue, boasted the town's first apartment building and underground or hidden electric lines. It also had the first sewer and water systems in the borough.

A fountain set in a flowering, vine-covered pergola added a European flair, and there were tennis courts, sidewalks and large houses with roomy porches. The entrance to the development featured cast iron electric light fixtures mounted on stone pillars, which still stand.

Homes and lots in the development were expensive. According to a 1989 Herald-Mail article, the neighborhood was touted as “a suburb comparing favorably with the choicest and most exclusive residential sections of New York, Philadelphia or Baltimore.”

And Allday was hailed as a man whose “energy, liberality and progressive spirit are bound to make their indelible impress upon the borough,” reported the Franklin Repository, a forerunner to Public Opinion, in 1909.

When World War I broke out, however, the community quickly forgot its earlier embrace of Allday, who had been born and attended university in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800s.

The Glen Apartment House while it was under construction. The under-construction fountain is in the foreground.(Photo: Franklin County Historical Society)

Allday, who had invested in German marks to send back to his mother and sister in his native country, was accused of being a spy. According to a paper published in Volume 17 of the Kittochtinny Papers, "West Chambersburg in the Long Ago" by Jessie Null Gordy, 1976, citizens built bonfires in front of his home, tore down his American flag, and burned him in effigy in the public square.

Elsewhere in Chambersburg, Gordy reported, the name of German Street was changed to Liberty Street, and the Bismarck Hotel to the Lincoln Hotel, and “everything German was suspect.”

Later in the stock market crash of 1929, Allday lost most of his wealth and was destitute until he died in 1951 in the county home rather than in the beautiful neighborhood he created.

More than “just history,” Allday’s story carries a sobering message for us in the current political climate. Immigrants and people different from us contribute to our communities in ways that enrich us and enrich generations to come. Let’s not be remembered with shame by future generations for misplaced rage and prejudice toward those among us of other heritages.

Becky Bennett is the editor of Public Opinion. Email babennett@publicopinionnews.com.